h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Finally the other boot has dropped. I think I expected this on and off at anytime during the last 10 years.

What's exciting though, is how liberating it is. We can finally be free from the constraints of the external moderators, the profanity filther, the print-based model with lock and key on edited entries, all the things that contstrained us and prevented us from taking first mover's advantage on all the cool stuff that the BBC wasn't interested in or just didn't get.

I hope that the BBC really do mean that they will do what's best for the community. We'e had so many offers of free shared hosting, such good advice from people who have been where we are and succeeded (in one case) and failed (in another), and such enthusiam from researchers, that I feel hopeful.

I do think that the Community Consortium can pull this off.

We know each other - who we are, our strengths and weaknesses

We have skillz on teh interwebs - not just geeks but professional IT geeks

We have organisational skillz - all sorts of job descriptions and expereinces are coming out of the closet over in h2g2c2

We don't need donations or funding - and hopefully we never will

Above all, the whole run-a-web-community thing is a known quantity - that's the big change from pre-Rupert.

To be honest, the to do list is long, but none of it's actually that intimidating.

I wish the interim committee well in their task. I am on the outside bleeping in because ... well for lots of reasons. But I really do think it's doable.

Now we just need to hear from Nick Reyonds what "it" will be.

Love me now.

*loves*

I'm sorry, what?

But I've always loved you, Trout. You know that.



Ben

I've just realised that the reason I am so confised by postings is that if you I am in old skule h2g2, I only see name suffixes, so you are "@ the h2g2 Community Consortium - A80173361". Now I see your name on the page I realise that the Mrs Zen bit is there, just missing.

Am amazed at the wonderful job the committee is doing - just a bit sad I can't do a lot more than offer moral support.

That's pretty much why my suffix starts with "Mr. D"...

Mrs Zen - Mrs Zen so good I named myself twice?

Top tip - thanks Kelli and Mr D

Yep. It's a bit complicated. I believe if someone is in Alabaster or Goo, all they see is the main username, but if they're in Brunel (as I am) all we see is the suffix. If I don't recognize the suffix, I cheat a bit and click on "reply" just to see the full name, then back out.

Though I've mostly sussed out who folks are from writing style and the occasional signature.

It occurs to me that other people might not realise it was you and could think you were the consortium expressing its collective view rather than a person speaking for herself, so good job you've updated it!

I'm in goo and only see the boring part of people's names. (But at least I see who they are). The irony being, that my suffix includes a reference to Quote of the Day. This is only visible in barlesque, where there is no quote of the day!

Anyway - back to Post 1. A topic we should be discussing.